VOL. III. 29
450 THE FILTH OF SIN PURGED [bOOK IV.
too liite. Unless you are washed by tlie Spirit of God and in the blood of Christ from the pollutions of your natures, you shall not inherit the kingdom of God, 1 Cor. vi. 9-11. Yea, you will be a horrid spectacle unto saints and angels, yea, to yourselves, unto one another, when the shame of your nakedness shall be made to ap- pear, Isa. Ixvi. 24. If, therefore, you would not perish, and that eternally ; if you would not perish as base, defiled creatures, an ab- horring unto all flesh, then when your pride, and your wealth, and your beauty, and your ornaments, and your duties, will stand you in no stead, — look out betimes after that only way of purifying and cleansing your souls which God hath ordained. But if you love your defilements; if you are proud of your pollutions; if you satisfy your- selves with your outward ornaments, whether moral, of gifts, duties, profession, conversation, or natural, of body, wealth, apparel, gold, and silver, — there is no remedy, you must perish for ever, and that under the consideration of the basest and vilest part of the creation.
Seeing this is the condition of all by nature, if any one now shall inquire and ask what they shall do, what course they shall take, that they may be cleansed according to the will of God, in answer here- unto I shall endeavour to direct defiled sinners, by sundry steps and' degrees, in the way unto the cleansing fountain. There is a "foun- tain set open for sin and uncleanness,'' Zech. xiii. 1. But it falleth out with many, as the wise man speaketh, " The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city," Eccles. x. 1 5. Men weary themselves and pine away under their pollutions, because they cannot find the way; they know not how to go to the cleansing fountain. I shall, therefore, direct them from first to last, according to the best skill I have : —
1, Labour after an acquaintance with it, to know it in its nature and effects. Although the Scripture so abounds in the assertion and declaration of it, as we have showed, and believers find a sense of it in their experience, yet men in common take little notice of it. Somewhat they are affected with the guilt of sin, but little or not at all with its filth. So they can escape the righteousness of God, which they have provoked, they regard not their unanswerableness unto his holiness, whereby they are polluted. How few, indeed, do inquire into the pravity of their natures, that vileness which is come upon them by the loss of the image of God, or do take themselves to be much concerned therein! How few do consider aright that /omes and filthy spring which is continually bubbling up crooked, perverse, defiled imaginations in their hearts, and influencing their affections unto the lewdness of depraved concupiscence! Who meditates npon the holiness of God in a due manner, so as to ponder what we our- selves ought to be, how holy, how upright, how clean, if we intend
CHAP, v.] BY THE SPIRIT AND BLOOD OF CHRIST. 451
to please him or enjoy him? With what aiDpearances, what outsides of things, are most men satisfied! yea, how do they please them- selves in the shades of their own darkness and ignorance of these things, when yet an unacquaintedness with this pollution of sin is unavoidably ruinous unto their souls! See the danger of it, Rev. iii. 16-18. Those who would be cleansed from it must first know it; and although we cannot do so aright without some convincing light of the Spirit of Uod, yet are there duties required of us in order thereunto; as, — (1.) To search the Scripture, and to consider seri- ou.sly what it declareth concerning the condition of our nature after the loss of the image of God. Doth it not declare that it is shame- fully naked, destitute of all beauty and comeliness, wholly polluted and defiled? And what is said of that nature which is common unto all is said of every one who is partaker of it. Every one is " gone aside," every one is become " altogether filthy," or stinking, Ps. liii. 3. This is the glass wherein every man ought to contemplate himself, and not in foolish, flattering reflections from his own proud imaginations; and he that will not hence learn his natural deformity shall live polluted and die accursed. (2.) He who hath received the testimony of the Scripture concerning his corrupted and polluted estate, if he will be at the pains to try and examine himself by the reasons and causes that are assigned thereof, will have a farther view of it. When men read, hear, or are instructed in what the Scripture teacheth concerning the defilement of sin, and give some assent to what is spoken, without an examination of their own state in parti- cular, or bringing their souls unto that standard and measure, they will have very little advantage thereby. Multitudes learn that they are polluted by nature, which they cannot gainsay; but yet really find no such thing in themselves. But when men will bring their own souls to the glass of the perfect law, and consider hoAV it is Avith them in respect of that image of God wherein they were at first created, what manner of persons they ought to be with respect unto the holiness of God, and what they are, — how vain are their imagina- tions, how disorderly are their affections, how perverse all the actings of their minds, — they will be ready to say, with the leprous man, " Unclean, unclean." But they are but few who will take the pains to search their own wounds, it being a matter of smart and trouble to corrupt and carnal affections. Yet, (3.) Prayer for light and di- rection herein is required of all as a duty. For a man to know him- self was of old esteemed the highest attainment of human wisdom. Some men will not so much as inquire into themselves, and some men dare not, and some neglect the doing of it from spiritual sloth, and other deceitful imaginations; but he that would ever be purged from his sins must thus far make bold with himself, and dare to be